Love
by JodieJelloCube
Summary: And the second it took her to regret her harsh words, was the second it took him to stop trying.


_**Please read author's note:**_ This idea has been battering against the inside of my skull for weeks, and I was originally going to request it of someone else, but I don't know any authors that do requests. I don't like Beast Boy and Terra as a couple, simply because they blow holes in my ship, but I do appreciate that Terra was a well-versed plot device and I believe essential to Beast Boy's emotional maturity.

So, this is supposed to be from Raven's point of view, even though it's written in third person, it's supposed to be about Raven's feelings, and with that in mind, this isn't really a BB/Terra story.

This song has been replaying in my head so much that it hurts, and I don't even know why but every time I thought of Raven/Beast Boy/Terra.

Song: 'Love' – Daughter.

* * *

_**I can't forget it,**_

_**Though I've tried.**_

_**I know you regret it, love;**_

_**You've told me so many times.**_

Raven longed so badly to hate him, to scream at him and resent him. She wanted more than anything to claim her vengeance, to do irreparable damage to his fragile heart. She needed beyond reason to make him suffer the way that she did. But despite these inexcusable thoughts, despite every fantasy in which she indulged in tearing him apart in the most violent of ways, she couldn't even look at him. She couldn't bring herself to act upon these desires, because after everything, she still loved him. She refused to lay eyes upon him; she had become an inactive member of the team, never venturing from her room until she was positive he was outside the tower.

Every night followed the same routine, he'd stand outside her door and beg and cry and plead his apologies, the words never quite the same but the message never different. She would listen, and she too would cry, but she would not open her heart to him, or her arms, she couldn't even open her door. She could not move past this discretion, this betrayal. She was done. She'd uttered not a word to him in weeks.

_**But, I still wonder why.**_

_**You left with her,**_

_**And left me behind.**_

Raven's breaths were deep and jagged, the tightening in her chest had not eased since the solemn discovery that she would always be second best. She was not beautiful, not carefree. These were qualities that she had not known that Gar required in a woman. But there was no other explanation for why he would so readily run into the arms of the one who'd wronged him, unless he craved the qualities in her that Raven did not possess.

Raven's hatred for Terra was common knowledge and not at all misplaced, she had more than enough reasons to loathe the geomancer, but it seemed that Terra was always looking for ways to give Raven more. It would not be absurd to suggest that Raven was indeed envious of the earth-mover, and maybe she was, but it was buried deep beneath the hurt, humiliation, and blind rage. If it hadn't been for the fact that Raven had long been purged of her father's influence, she would have undoubtedly grabbed Terra by the throat. She had wanted to, but her other, more humane emotions were too powerful to function through. She had broken. But Terra had not won. Despite the fact that Terra had returned with the exact intention of keeping the promises she'd made to Beast Boy so long ago, and despite the fact that she'd managed to lull him into a false sense of security, Gar had ultimately tossed her out. He'd realised too late who he couldn't be without. Raven had seen too much to be with him now.

_**Take your hands off him,**_

'_**Cause he's the only one**_

_**That I have ever loved.**_

_**Please don't find her skin,**_

_**When you turn the lights out.**_

Raven may have had a burning desire to crush Terra for her intrusion, but though she was unwilling to admit it, it was Gar who'd hurt her more. Her chest was stinging and her lungs giving out, the one person she loved in the world had lain in the arms of another, and how dare she step in? How dare she touch him in such a way? Didn't she understand that he was claimed? These were questions that Raven asked herself often. But maybe the questions that should have been the most frequent were: How could he do this to me? Why wasn't I enough? What does she have that I don't? And the most agonising of all: doesn't he love me?

After another painful hour of listening to Gar's heartbroken grovelling outside her door, after he'd spilled his heart and she'd left it to soak into the carpet, he'd once again trudged, defeated, back to his bed. Raven held her palm against the door, and stared longingly at its metal surface. "Please don't go back to her," she whispered.

_**I can't erase it,**_

_**From my mind,**_

_**I just replay it, love.**_

_**I think of it all of the time.**_

Raven hadn't slept since the incident; she suffered from recurring nightmares of the event that had shattered her completely. Every night it came to her, flashes of skin and murmured grunts flooded her subconscious and she awoke in tears, her heart only becoming heavier. The part that plagued her most was how vivid these dreams were becoming, each time the awful montage played out it was like she was seeing it for the first time, like her world was falling apart all over again, and she was powerless to stop it. She was sleep deprived, and lonely without him. But she couldn't bear to have him with her, not now, not after all that he'd thrown away. And she knew he was sorry, she knew the deep remorse he felt for the pain he'd caused her, and by extension himself. He kept swearing up and down that it had never been worth it, that he needed her back and that he'd never hurt her again.

No matter what he said, it made no difference. And as each day passed and he was greeted with her silence, he was slowly beginning to realise that the damage he'd caused could well be permanent. He'd sabotaged his own happiness, and all but turned his back on the woman he loved. His strives to get her back meant nothing amidst the harm he'd done. And so he suffered, and a part of her would have revelled in that, had she not been suffering alongside him.

_**But I don't want to imagine,**_

_**Words you spoke to her that night.**_

_**Naked bodies look like porcelain,**_

_**You both knew I'd be bleeding inside.**_

The image remained seared behind her lids, every time Raven closed her eyes it would be there, taunting her, sickening her, destroying her. The devastatingly play of Gar's body entangled with Terra's, their skin luminous in the moonlight that shone through the window, the otherwise dark room cocooning them as their breaths mingled and gasped off. Her lover's plight was watermarked with her tears as she looked on, frozen in place and insides reduced to dust. She could feel the heat pulsating from them, between them, and she'd never felt so cold.

With great fear Raven contemplated how they'd ended up in such an intimate situation, what words were spoken to result in such scandal? How could have they possibly conversed that would make them believe it was okay? Had they not given her a thought? She truly did mean nothing then, despite his insistence to the contrary.

_**Did she make your heart beat faster than I could?**_

_**Did she give you what you hoped for?**_

_**On night of loveless love, **_

_**I hope it made you feel good,**_

_**Knowing how much I adored you.**_

The same torturous routine carried out, and Gar once again stood outside the large door that had separated him from the one person in his life he simply _couldn't _lose. He was unwilling to admit that he'd already lost her; he was in denial about how far he'd pushed her. He refused to believe that he had no chance of fixing what was broken. He hadn't seen her in weeks, hadn't heard her voice, he would've wondered if she was even in there if it hadn't been for the fact that she'd be nowhere else. He'd gone with no hope and no expectation and he just spoke, the words fell from his tongue, without a filter, without thought. He told her how much she meant, and how he'd hate himself forever for what he'd done to them. He told her that he loved her so much and that Terra had been the forbidden fruit, and that he'd wanted her because he couldn't have her, and she'd so willingly given. He expected silence, but silence was not what she gave him.

She did not open the door; she feared that she'd take a look at his face and lose her nerve. But she spoke to him directly for the first time in entirely too long, and even she could hear how broken she sounded.

"Was it worth it? You say it wasn't, but it must've been." She said barely loud enough for him to catch it, he began to reply but she spoke over him, halting his sentence after the first syllables.

"You knew, you know me better than anyone, and you knew how much you meant to me. You knew how terrified I was that I'd lose you…" she murmured, and on the other side of the door, Gar's ears dropped in shame, his eyes watering at the pain in her words, and their implication.

"Rae, baby, I'm sorry. I know it's nothing I haven't said already. And I don't deserve you, I never deserved you, but I need you." He began to plead, and it was that same desolation in his voice she'd heard a million times, that always reduced her to tears.

"Did you feel powerful? Satisfied? Was it the thrill of being caught? The danger of it all? Or was it that she's all you've really wanted?" Raven's words had taken a bitter edge, her anger for a moment winning out, in that second she hated him, but for that second alone.

"Don't come back, Garfield. I don't need any more of your begging. I don't want any more of your deception." She seethed and he broke. A wretched sob escaped his chest and he walked away with such grief. And the second it took her to regret her harsh words, was the second it took him to stop trying. He'd lost her, he knew it now. She needed him, beyond reason, she knew it now. For both of them, it was too late.

_**Did she make your heart beat faster than I could?**_

_**Did she give you what you hoped for?**_

_**On nights of loveless love,**_

_**I hope it made you feel good,**_

_**Knowing how much I adored you.**_


End file.
